A typical insurance marketing strategy might include a mixture of targeted e-marketing campaigns, educational webinars, blogging and content creation, social media, video, white papers, attendance and presentation at networking events and conferences, and so on. It’s a strategy that has been tried and tested to great success by insurers over the years. But Hagerty Canada – the managing general agent (MGA) behind Canada’s leading classic and collector insurance program – is taking its marketing efforts one step further. The MGA is thriving through experiential marketing.
Insurance is just one reason why vehicle enthusiasts migrate towards Hagerty Canada. Another key, possibly more important, pull for people is the community that Hagerty brings together. There has always been a facet of the Hagerty business that is lifestyle facing. Members of the Hagerty program gain access to things like an automobile enthusiast magazine, roadside assistance services, valuation tools, and entry to unique automobile events, all of which is separate and complimentary to the insurance product.
Hagerty Canada: The value of enthusiast automobile insurance
In 2019, that membership model, which was originally known as Hagerty Plus, went through a total refresh, where it became the Hagerty Drivers Club. This experiential proposition is fit for the modern digital age and accessible via mobile. Members maintain access to all of the value-added services they had under Hagerty Plus, but, through the Drivers Club, they can benefit from new capabilities like an online enthusiast vehicle marketplace, and access to a new peer-to-peer rental business for classic cars, called Drive Share.
“The Hagerty Drivers Club is undergoing a complete refresh, so that it can become a more robust part of our business,” said James LaClair, vice president of Hagerty Canada. “Moving forwards, there will be a lot more offerings going through that platform, with insurance just being one of them. In Canada, we already have over 40,000 members, and this program will grow as a North American effort.
“We want to provide a lot more experiences for our members through the Hagerty Drivers Club platform. Being able to attract people to our insurance product through physical interactions is going to be central to our strategy. I think the most glaring example of that today is our brand-new club house that we just opened in Richmond Hill, Ontario. Approximately 40% of the square footage will be dedicated to our insurance operations, and the other 60% of the square footage will be for member engagement. There will be cars on display, there will be car club meetings, there will be monthly cruise-ins. It’s truly going to be our automotive club house in Ontario, and it’s central to our heavy experiential marketing ambitions over the next five years.”
